UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2011‐2012 Teaching Committee Meeting ‐ Minutes Wednesday 29 February 2012 17:15‐19:00 Foster Court room 101 Staff present
Luay Hasan Karine Roumetz Yoko Aldous Dr So Hiranuma Adam Salisbury Anja Boeing Dr Christine Hoffmann Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer Pierre Scordia Roberto D’Onofrio (Chair) James Sinclair‐Knopp Madeleine Du Vivier Fabrice Lamotte Jane Skirving Juan Fernandez Mireille Michel Cristina Testi Diego Flores‐Jaime Marc‐Georges Nowicki Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Philippe Galinier Catherine Plant Selina Zheng.
Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Barbara Resta Claudia Geithner Jenny Rodgers 1.
Welcome and apologies Apologies given: Siqin Brown, Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey, Laurie Gabay, Liyun Liao, Chizuko Seki‐Zdrzalka, Genesia Spagnuolo. 2.
UCL and Language Centre developments Chair gave summary of notices: NOTED: it has been an extremely successful term in Kazakhstan; Lesley Price is now the head of the Centre in Astana; NOTED: The Language Centre has been considered for a Provost Teaching and Learning award, for both our work in Kazakhstan and here in London. 3.
Mini Observations For quality assurance observations were carried out by the Director and two other senior members of staff (Jane Skirving and Madeleine Du Vivier) on all Course Unit classes during this week and last; These observations are also carried out on English, Evening Courses and Kazakhstan teaching staff and it is essential that they take place; NOTED: Observers noted that, compared to the last mini observations 5 years ago, there were fewer examples of good teaching, with about a third of staff showing room for improvement; NOTED: Jane Skirving gave a general summary of examples of strengths and weaknesses. ACTION: Tutors to make an appointment to meet with their observers at the end of term to have individual feedback AND/OR observers may recommend to carry out another observation in the autumn 2012 term; Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐02‐29 ‐ Minutes 4.
NOTED: there are some very small Course Units classes, e.g. with two students; some with absent or late students; ACTION: punctuality needs to be addressed. Discussion took place on when is the best time during the academic year to carry out observations, from both the tutor and the student point of view, with many different opinions being given; NOTED: it should not really matter when observations take place as they are intended as an overview, or a snapshot, and a lesson plan should always be available; observations are not about the students, but about how tutors deal with the students, regardless of timing and situation. NOTED: it would be useful for tutors to have an example of a good lesson plan; ACTION: observing staff will put some onto the Staff Area of the Language Centre website; there are ready some examples of EAP lesson plans on there. ACTION: Jane Skirving will email the summary of feedback to everybody. Examinations 4.1 Reading and Writing examinations NOTED: Chair confirmed that Senior Coordinators review exam papers across all levels and languages and that although there are no restrictions to topics, texts do sometimes have to be rejected for unsuitability. Coordinators should always give feedback to their teams, and for feedback purposes there is also a yellow folder in the teachers Quiet room containing exam scripts with comments written directly on them for tutors to see. NOTED: Almost all exams are now ready to be given to UCL Registry, aside from a Japanese paper, all Spanish papers, which are still with the Visiting Examiner, the TEFL paper, as it contains a colour photocopy so the Course Units office must make copies of this paper and all Arabic papers, which will be submitted later; NOTED: the draft examination timetable should be released by UCL Registry this week; ACTION: The office will forward a copy onto Coordinators once received. 4.2 Oral examinations NOTED: the following points were made by Chair:  Oral exam slots are ONLY bookable online;  Full information about conducting oral exams will be circulated by the office to all shortly;  Oral exams will only be rescheduled into a reserved exam slot in the event of an exam clash; in this case the student must email the office;  All requested to return any digital recorders to the IT office, once finished using them for listening course assessments;  If a student has two exams in one day (e.g. a departmental exam and our Oral exam), although tough, this is not a reason to change their oral exam date, however if time is really tight in between the two exams, then yes we can consider swapping their exam time, or where necessary, creating a new slot. 5.
Coursework NOTED: the following points regarding the Project coursework were made by Chair: 
Tutors should ensure their students are familiar with the Project Guidelines and what needs to be submitted; 
Extension requests must be submitted via email to the Course Units office BEFORE the deadline; 
Regarding project marking tutors must adhere to the Project marking criteria – one of our Visiting Examiners commented last year that low level projects cannot be marked above 85%; 
If a tutor suspects plagiarism they should check the project marking criteria and in the first instance, discuss with their coordinator; 
Projects will be available in the office for tutors to collect from Thursday 08 March, after 14:00, i.e. the day AFTER project submission; please do not attempt to collect them on the 7th as the office will be very busy all day; Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐02‐29 ‐ Minutes 
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The deadline for all coursework marks to be submitted to the office is Monday 23 April, either by email, or on the class registers. Revision workshops NOTED: Chair confirmed the following: 
Revision workshops must be offered for all languages and levels – one for the Oral exam and one for the Reading and Writing exam: these are included as part of the total hours stated for each course – it was raised by one of our Visiting Examiners last year and noted by some students that they did not have a workshop, while their friends on other courses did; 
Different levels could have combined workshops only if classes are very small and this is appropriate. ACTION: tutors to email details of remaining workshops that have not yet been scheduled to the Course Units office by this Friday 02 March, so that they can be roomed. Student feedback NOTED: the Staff‐Student Consultative Meeting will take place tomorrow, Thursday 01 March at 17.15 in the Rockefeller Building room 339. Student Representatives have already been emailed about this. NOTED: Student Evaluation Questionnaires will be produced and given to tutors to distribute in class over the last two weeks of term. Any other business 8.1 Registers ACTION: tutors reminded to submit their class registers to the office each week (not all have been). 8.2 SSC tutors NOTED: for those tutors whose contractual fractionality has increased as they are teaching the SSC medics classes: this will continue until 30 April 2012 (rather than 31 March 2012), in order to cover the Oral examination period. 8.3 Dates to note NOTED: Once the final, confirmed UCL exam timetable is released, we will confirm the 1st and 2nd exam marking time frame; Visiting Examiners will be here for moderation during the week of 28 May 2012; The Board of Examiners meeting will take place on 07 June 2012. 8.4 Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language Courses NOTED: UCL Outreach hope to offer SIMFL courses to school children who do not have a foreign language GCSE; it is anticipated that these will run at a similar time to the existing UCL SIMFL courses, during July. This means beginners level courses will run for all languages. We will discuss details nearer the time. Meeting closed at 19:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 09 March 2012 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐02‐29 ‐ Minutes